The headlines had become almost as predictable as they were sickening: another youth sports coach, in another part of New Jersey, arrested for molesting another young athlete.
It was after one such story covering the shocking arrest of a beloved coach that reporters Matthew Stanmyre and Keith Sargeant started asking questions. How many sports coaches had been accused of sexually assaulting their charges over the past year? Why are so many coaches seemingly preying on young athletes? And is anyone paying attention?
The stunning answers became the basis for NJ Advance Media’s groundbreaking investigation — “Prey to Play” — which revealed that youth sports in New Jersey have become infested with an alarming number of sexual predators, compelling several experts to describe a sexual abuse crisis.
High-profile abuse cases involving athletic coaches are all too familiar, including Larry Nassar, Jerry Sandusky, and Dennis Hastert. Yet what Stanmyre and Sargeant’s reporting revealed was how commonplace and pervasive the abuse has become — evident in virtually every sport, at every level — and enabled in large part by cultural and economic trends. Since the financial crisis of 2008, youth sports have steadily evolved away from school- and municipal-based teams to a largely unregulated world of traveling teams, private coaching, and elite training facilities. Efforts to keep predators out of youth sports haven’t remotely kept pace with the explosion of youth sports nationwide, now estimated to be a $40 billion-a-year industry.
The multi-part exposé included a first-of-its-kind database showing that, since 2015, at least 141 youth sports coaches, trainers, or industry workers have been accused of sex crimes across the state. The investigation also uncovered how dangerous coaches are flying under the radar because of errors in the state’s sex offender registry. A series of illustrations by Jon Krause distilled a complex, sensitive topic — predator risk within youth sports — into impactful visuals that draw attention to the pervasive threat.
